F**king Mondays: Israel Decapitates Hezbollah, Russell Brand Prays, and Elon "Free Speech" Musk!
It's that time of the week again!
Welcome to another edition of F**king Mondays!” In the roundup today:
Israel decapitates Hezbollah
In an extraordinary series of events, Israel has now taken out most of Hezbollah’s leadership and decimated the organization’s top military command. Just a week after booby-trapping thousands of Hezbollah pagers, Israel used precision bombing to destroy a residential building in southern Beirut over the weekend and kill Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Nasrallah’s death has sent shockwaves around the world, particularly in the Middle East where Hezbollah has been a formidable military and political force for decades. It is widely believed (but not proven) that Israel had a mole close to the notoriously cautious Nasrallah, who shared the leader’s location with the IDF.
The surprise attack has fundamentally shifted the dynamics of the widening conflict in the Middle East and puts Israel in a powerful position to beat back its enemies and reshape the region according to its own objectives. Having largely destroyed Hamas, Israel was expected to take on the increasingly aggressive Hezbollah in the coming months. Military analysts predicted a much harder fight with Hezbollah given its military prowess and access to Iranian money, so no one believed the Israelis could do this much damage, this quickly. But they have, and it is unclear whether Hezbollah will be capable of striking back. Israel will soon launch a limited land invasion of Southern Lebanon where it will continue destroying Hezbollah’s infrastructure, and if the organization does resist, it is unlikely they will fare well.
The death of Nasrallah and the destruction of Hezbollah’s top military command is part of Israel’s wider campaign against Iran. The Islamic Republican has been fighting a proxy war with Israel, using extremist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Yemen’s Houthis with varying degrees of success. The death of Nasrallah is yet another signal to Iran that Israel can hit back with frightening precision in any fashion it likes. It will be enormously humiliating for the regime, and despite promises to retaliate, it isn’t clear what options they have left. Israel can thwart its attacks with relative ease, and it can reach deep inside Iran to hit any target it wants.
Israel’s success echoes the Six Day War in 1967 that saw Israel demolish Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in under a week. That conflict saw Israel emerge as the region’s preeminent super power and fundamentally changed how the world viewed the Jewish state. For better or worse, this latest string of Israeli victories will have a similar impact on the region, and almost certainly in ways we cannot predict.
Russell Brand prays with Jordan Peterson
After shocking reports came out about Russell Brand raping, abusing and coercing underage girls over a number of a years, the former actor has completed his journey to full right wing blowhard. Having dabbled in Deep State conspiracy theories for a number of years on his YouTube channel, Brand’s fall from grace appears to have sent him fully over the edge. Instead of owning up to the highly detailed, heavily corroborated stories compiled by The Times newspaper and Channel 4 , Brand framed the accusations as a Deep State conspiracy to destroy him. Brand then very publicly converted to Christianity in a bizarre ceremony in the river Thames:
Having fully absolved himself of all sins, Brand is now performing public prayers in front of far right audiences. Brand’s prayer with Peterson was part of the “Rescue the Republic Rally” in Washington DC this past weekend. The rally saw dozens of conspiracy theorists and fringe activists like Tulsi Gabbard, Dave Rubin, Matt Taibbi and Brett Weinstein join forces to denounce “The Deep State” (ie. the Democrats) and stop perpetual war, surveillance, and attacks on “family sovereignty”.
It is unclear why Peterson, who is Canadian, and Brand, who is British, are so obsessed with the Democratic party in America. Either way, both believe saddling up to far right figures in America is the only way to fight this unmitigated evil, particularly ones with huge social media followings.
It seems incredible that Brand was once taken reasonably seriously by the political classes in the UK and US. Brand guest edited the New Statesman, spoke in front of Parliament, took part in public debates over immigration, and started a news channel that gained quite a lot of traction after interviewing Labour candidate for Prime Minister Ed Miliband. Brand once used his platform to spread messages about poverty and corporate greed. Now he uses it to promote the far right conspiratorial politics of Donald Trump Jr., Alex Jones, and Tucker Carlson. Oh, and baptizing other people in his underwear and sharing it to his 11.3 million followers in Twitter:
Elon “Free Speech” Musk
Elon Musk was so incensed by the Deep State’s alleged censoring of free speech that he bought Twitter. Having purchased the world’s global town square, Musk is now using it to, wait for it, censor speech!
This is what happened to journalist Ken Klippenstein after he published Donald Trump campaign’s leaked JD Vance research dossier last week:
Self-styled free speech warrior Elon Musk’s X (Twitter) banned me after I published a copy of the Donald Trump campaign’s JD Vance research dossier. X says that I’ve been suspended for “violating our rules against posting private information,” citing a tweet linking to my story about the JD Vance dossier. First, I never published any private information on X. I linked to an article I wrote here, linking to a document of controversial provenance, one that I didn’t want to alter for that very reason.
Here is the message Klippenstein received from Twitter (or ‘X’):
As of publishing, Klippenstein’s account is still suspended. Twitter’s reasoning is absurd given it has been used extensively by right wing conspiracy theorists — including Musk — to publish private information to the web (anyone remember the Twitter files and Hunter Biden’s explicit photos?).
This is further proof that Elon Musk has almost no interest in protecting free speech, and is instead a deeply malevolent robber baron using his platform to manipulate elections for his own ends. Free speech apparently only extends to those supporting Musk’s favored political candidate, and not to anyone who might harm them.
Nate Silver’s model shows Kamala Harris winning
In the weird world of political polling, Nate Silver is — or at least was viewed as being the nation’s leading expert. His methodology has been called into question recently given he had Trump favored to win while every other major prediction outlet was predicting Harris. Whether Silver has beed influenced by Trump supporting billionaires is for another post, but his model is finally aligned with the others that show Harris comfortably ahead:
There are no major polls out today, but Harris’s advantage appears to be quite stable. With less than five weeks to go, that can only be a good thing.
Have a great week!
Listen to the latest episode of The Banter Roundtable Podcast:
For Banter Members:
The Emergency Meeting: The Politics of the Death Penalty
In The Emergency Meeting Podcast, we talk about the politics of the death penalty. Last week, five people were put to death in America, which is still the only Western democracy where the state has the right to execute its citizens. Why is Donald Trump for it, and Kamala Harris against it? Also, why is Harris not speaking …
“This is further proof that Elon Musk has almost no interest in protecting free speech,”
“Almost”?!!
Good lord, Ben, how blatant does he have to be?
I cannot understand the continual fear liberals have of calling fascists out on their shit in no uncertain terms. When someone is charging at you with guns blazing, as the bullets head your way, do you say “Gosh, it almost looks like they mean to harm me?”
How more blatant does Musk need to be before liberals in the media will dispense with the cowardly “almost”, “appears to be”, and “might be” cop outs?
Anyone want to tell Russell that despite claiming to have found God he can still be a lowlife (alleged) rapist that can still get his comeuppance in court? I'm not buying his born-again act any more than I'm buying a trump watch. Same grift, different product.